Jeehee Yoo

The public places where we socially meet others and spend time have been turned into places of fear after the COVID-19 outbreak. I seek to share our anxiety, depression, and lethargy in our society with the nostalgia for the time before the pandemic.

Cafeteria is based on a photo taken in Bangkok before the outbreak. In Waltz for Lover, Yoo recalls their memory of their grandparents showing waltz dances that were popular in their time in the US. Reminiscent of their own pleasant memories, holding hands tightly, and taking steps one by one while facing each other’s faces.

— Jeehee Yoo

Jeehee Yoo: In my paintings, I explore the surrounding culture and contemplate how cultural identity changes and is embodied within the context of human existence. By reconstructing objects and places in a way of hybridism, transformation, and inheritance, I create a formative meaning. As a person in the era of nomadism and diaspora, interest in cultural hybridism has always persisted in my artwork. My cultural identity in a diversified era is expressed in my artworks as confusion caused by the cross-cultural intersection. Through exploring the diversified cultural identity of the times of glocalism, researching the hybridization of various cultures, and capturing that confusion in my artwork, I create my own formative language and perspective.